IONE - A medical marijuana grower is dead and five men suspected of robbing him are in jail following a gun battle on Carbondale Road northwest of Ione.

The Amador County Sheriff's Office reported that several people living in the area began calling to report the sounds of gunfire about 9:10 p.m. Tuesday.

By 9:24 p.m., up to 20 shots had been fired, and one caller reported seeing a dark sport utility vehicle and a white pickup leaving the site of the gun battle.

One minute later, Amador County sheriff's deputies arrived and pursued the two vehicles. They caught the green Ford Expedition at Preston Avenue and Wilda Court in Ione. The five men arrested - all believed by law enforcement officials to be members of an Asian-American street gang in Sacramento - were in that vehicle.

The white pickup got away.

Inside the green Ford Expedition, investigators found police-style gear, including a bullet-resistant vest, a tactical vest marked SWAT, a red-and-blue dash-mounted light, plastic handcuffs and numerous gloves. The vehicle also contained plastic bags and pruning shears, but no firearms or ammunition.

"We have not seen this at all in our county," Sheriff Martin Ryan said of the robbery of a medical-marijuana growing operation by such a well-organized group. "This is brand-new to us, although similar things have been occurring throughout California."

Sheriff investigators did not release the names of the five men, who ranged in age from 18 to 23, because their identities had not yet been confirmed.

Ryan said his investigators had to bring in translators to talk to some of the men. They are being held at the Amador County Jail on suspicion of attempted robbery and a gang enhancement.

When investigators entered the scene of the gun battle, they found the property's resident dead. They reported that the man, He Ting Fu, 45, was covered in blood and grasping an empty shotgun.

There were empty shotgun shells on the floor and numerous bullet holes and expended ammunition in trailers and buildings. There were also 779 marijuana plants - 379 growing indoors and another 400 outdoors.

During the investigation, a person associated with the property arrived and produced medical-marijuana documents sufficient to allow cultivation of 198 marijuana plants, officials reported.

Subsequent searches of that person's home in Elk Grove and of a property in Sacramento County associated with the arrested men found additional growing operations and hundreds of additional plants.

The morning after the gun battle, investigators also found two semi-automatic pistols on the shoulder of Ione Michigan Bar Road along the route taken by the fleeing Expedition. They were consistent in calibre with the ammunition fired at the scene of the gun battle.

Officials said that previously crime against marijuana growers in Amador County has been targeted mostly at individuals who have only a few plants. Ryan said the advent of medical marijuana and commercial-scale growing has created an attractive target for criminals.

"In most cases, they are rather remote. In most cases, they are not well protected," Ryan said. "Unfortunately it brings this type of violence into rural communities."

Just the week before, on Sept. 22, the Calaveras County Sheriff's Department had arrested Dominic Lee Wadkins, 19, of San Andreas; James Core Hill, 27, of Fairfield; and a 17-year-old boy who were fleeing in a car seen at the robbery of medical-marijuana plants in Valley Springs.